Tag: Grinnell College

We could not in good conscience patronize campus facilities to discuss our work to advance economic opportunity and justice for all Iowans when a serious threat to workers’ rights was being mounted in front of us.

An Open Letter to the President of Grinnell College

The Iowa Policy Project Board of Directors met Tuesday in Grinnell. This would not normally be particularly noteworthy, but circumstances are not currently normal in Grinnell.

Grinnell College is a true asset to the state of Iowa, a private college with a strong educational reputation. Our organization has enjoyed holding our board meetings on the college campus in recent years, but this week decided we could not in good conscience patronize campus facilities and chose to relocate our scheduled meeting to a nearby off-campus restaurant.

We are deeply disturbed that the college’s leadership has so far refused to honor the results of a recent election in which student workers exercised their legal right to indicate their desire to bargain collectively with their employer. We were even more deeply disturbed that December 10th, one day prior to our meeting, the college took the extreme step of attempting to deny Grinnell student workers any rights as employees, via an appeal to the National Labor Relations Board. With this move, college leaders signaled their clear intent to trigger a federal Board decision that they know could in turn strip rights from millions of college and university employees (if they also happen to be students) across the country.

The college’s position matters to us because it matters for Iowa and the nation. We cannot promote the work our organization does to encourage economic opportunity and justice for the people of our state — including the rights of workers to organize and collectively bargain — and ignore a serious threat to those rights being mounted right in front of us.

We wish the college, its students, administrators, instructors and staff the best, and hope we will be able to return to campus for our next meeting upon learning the college has reversed its position.